The post brought to you by the letters P, M and I.
Do you like the fact that I snuck the fact that we’re looking for a place to buy into a meme? Yeah, I’m not impressed either.
So, we’re looking to buy a little house of our own. A place to park our computer equipment, let the cats get comfortable, freak the cats out by getting a puppy and then maybe, just maybe, pop out a few babies. Shhh, don’t tell my Mom that grandkids are on the table. She might get so excited that her head could explode. That would be messy. I don’t feel like cleaning that up.
So, we’re looking for a place that’s got room for computers, cats and kidlets. And, we don’t have a half a million dollars to spend (darn those laws that prohibit you from selling your organs). Oh, and we hate the idea of condos (sharing a backyard and all the decisions on any major repairs? Yeah, that’s not going to happen). So, we’re going to be moving to the boonies. Well, Malden, which might as well be the boonies to a girl who has never lived farther than walking distance from the Red Line.
I just might have to, gasp, get a car. I haven’t owned a car in four years. This could get interesting.
I’ve lived in the Somerville/Cambridge area my whole life. I didn’t even get my license until I was 18, that was how little I needed to be able to drive. That, and I was a terrifying driver when I was young. I wouldn’t have given me a license at age 16, that’s for damn sure.
So, to move from the area to a little farther out from the city is, well, terrifying. But, it just seems like the right thing to do. If you want to live in Cambridge, you pretty much have to have a trust fund. A very large trust fund. Even Somerville is heading that way. There is one house in all of Somerville that we can afford. One. And our realtor warns us that he thinks that Whitey Bulger could be buried in the basement, the place is in such rough shape. Even Medford is probably unaffordable at this point, if we don’t want to live in a shack. A small shack. I don’t want to live in a shack.
This seems like the right thing to do. The market is perfect for a couple like us, who have steady jobs, good credit scores, a decent down payment and no debt. We don’t need to sell a house to pay for this one. Prices are down. Interest rates are down. I’m tired of renting. We’re tired of renting.
The plan is to find a place that needs some work, give it some TLC, fix things up and then sell it a few years down the road. This should be fun.
OK, this is how incredibly FRIED my brain is this week…it took me like an hour to get the letters PMI thing.
Yeah, and we pay PMI.
You’ll love home ownership. Just try to erase things like PMI from your memory, and never look at the amount of interest you’ll pay over the course of the loan.
I’m excited for you guys! I hear you about moving further out from the city. But, the burbs won’t feel so daunting that first moment when you walk into your own home.